id the picture face down across his knees.
She gently pushed his head to the pillow and caught his arms in a firm
grasp.

"Yes, dear heart," she said with fullest assurance. "No little clothes
were ever whiter. I never in all my life saw such dainty, fine, little
stitches; and as for loving you, no boy's mother ever loved him more!"

A nervous trembling seized Freckles.

"Sure? Are you sure?" he urged with clicking teeth.

"I know," said the Angel firmly. "And Freckles, while you rest and be
glad, I want to tell you a story. When you feel stronger we will look at
the clothes together. They are here. They are all right. But while I
was at the Home getting them, I heard of some people that were hunting
a lost boy. I went to see them, and what they told me was all so exactly
like what might have happened to you that I must tell you. Then you'll
understand that things could be very different from what you always have
tortured yourself with thinking. Are you strong enough to listen? May I
tell you?"

"Maybe 'twasn't me mother! Maybe someone else made those little
stitches!"

"Now, goosie, don't you begin that," said the Angel, "because I know
that it was!"

"Know!" cried Freckles, his head springing from the pillow. "Know! How
can you know?"

The Angel gently soothed him back.

"Why, because nobody else would ever sit and do it the way it is done.
That's how I know," she said emphatically. "Now you listen while I tell
you about this lost boy and his people, who have hunted for months and
can't find him."

Freckles lay quietly under her touch, but he did not hear a word that
she was saying until his roving eyes rested on her face; he immediately
noticed a remarkable thing. For the first time she was talking to him
and avoiding his eyes. That was not like the Angel at all. It was the
delight of hearing her speak that she looked one squarely in the face
and with perfect frankness. There were no side glances and down-drooping
eyes when the Angel talked; she was business straight through. Instantly
Freckles' wandering thoughts fastened on her words.

"--and he was a sour, grumpy, old man," she was saying. "He always had
been spoiled, because he was an only son, so he had a title, and a big
estate. He would have just his way, no matter about his sweet little
wife, or his boys, or anyone. So when his elder son fell in love with a
beautiful girl having a title, the very girl of all the world his
father wanted him to,